Contact Sheet
During film days, almost every photographer kept a ready reckoner of the shots he produced. It was known as ‘Contact Sheet’. Of course you know that, but newcomers may not! Also, quite a few number of photographers feel that contact sheets could be made only of images shot on film. Not true. A contact sheet is a print, depicting thumbnail images of the photos we have shot. But wait, you say, “I have all the images on my computer. Why would I need a contact sheet”? In a way you would be right. But see it this way – you want to show your edited images to someone who does not have a computer; or, even if he has, he has to put ‘on’ the computer to view your images. Wouldn’t carrying a contact sheet be easier? The contact sheet feature was available in few of the earlier versions of Photoshop but was dropped in the recent versions because it was possible to create a contact sheet only in 32- bit mode. Now, in Photoshop CS6 ( 64- bit version), you can once again create contact sheets. I shall create a contact sheet of some of the images I have edited.
1. First, see that all the edited images are placed in a suitably named folder. 2. Go to File > Automate > Contact Sheet II. A dialog box named Contact Sheet II will open ( see Printscreen 1). 3. In the ‘ Source Images’ section, select ‘ Folder’ in the Use box. Then click on Choose and select the folder wherein you have placed the images.
4. The inputs for the ‘ Document’ section are pretty straightforward. In our example, I have opted for a 12 x 18 inch print. See the other options I have selected.
5. In the ‘ Thumbnails’ section, decide on the number of thumbnails for each column and row. You can also decide if you want the thumbnails to be aligned column- wise or row- wise.
6. Hit the OK button and Photoshop will create the contact sheet. If all the thumbnails cannot fit on a single sheet, Photoshop will automatically create a second contact sheet.
7. Save the work using the Save As command.